"The Kick": So Barbaric the Huff Post Shys Away...

Here's an article I recently submitted to The Huffington Post, who have published all of my most recent posts without question. Their response was: 

 Dear Jeb Harrison,

We appreciate you taking the time to submit your most recent post. Unfortunately, we are going to pass on it for publication at this time, and will look forward to your next submission.

Thanks,
Huffington Post blog team

I replied, asking what it was that made the post so objectionable, but have not heard back yet. I suspect it's the very last line. What do you think?

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Yesterday I saw a surveillance video shot outside a karaoke bar in San Francisco that I dare not share for fear that it will cause one and maybe more instant cardiac arrests. It takes all of 4 seconds, yet is so disturbing the image is imprinted on the backs of my eyelids such that I may never be able to close my eyes again. In it, three people in their twenties, two men and one woman, are shown walking down the street. A young blonde woman approaches from the other direction and is knocked down as her purse is stripped from her. As the three turn and hurriedly walk back in the direction they came, the blonde begins to push herself up from her supine position. Another man then enters the frame and kicks her in the face. She goes down hard, unconscious, and based on the ferocity of the kick, it’s not certain that she’ll ever rise again.

This video may as well be entitled “The Kick”, because it is the incredibly powerful and fast movement of the attacker’s left leg, landing his foot directly in her face, hair and head flying back and down to the pavement in the blink of an eye. She is then totally motionless as her attacker calmly walks off without the slightest pause. In another second another man walks past the woman lying on the pavement without even looking at her. To say that “The Kick” is overwhelmingly shocking would be an understatement: there are no words to describe the barbaric brutality of this soccer shot to a human being’s head.

While I could’ve have cried, I didn’t. I was too numb and still am, and it is this numbing of the sensibilities of the American people, brought one by acts like this, one after another after another on any given day, that will someday result in the conflagration the Bible thumpers have been predicting all along. When you witness these isolated events of pure evil fueled byOn the Trail of the 21st Century American Barbarian

hundred-proof hatred,on the streets and in the towns, cities, apartment complexes, schools, shopping malls, theaters, parks, beaches, and parking lots of America, you can’t help but be inclined to agree: Armageddon must be just around the corner. Or at least 40 days and 40 nights of a global gully-washer.

Who can explain it? Perhap you have heard an explanation that satisfies your need for cause and effect laws of the universe? To me, violence like “the kick” seems particularly American. Unlike some of the world’s cultures where the need for basic survival pits people against each other in a fight for resources, and unlike other cultures where religious institutions sanction what some might consider barbaric traditions and punishments (ie: stoning), American evil might somehow be connected to a complete absence of any meaningful and/or unifying code of ethics or morals. The myth of the melting pot, and the clear evidence that the chasms between various American ethnic, religious, geographic, and political groups are getting wider and wider, has created a vacuum. Into this vacuum has rushed a ponderous, inefficient, unfair system of criminal law that would throw the head kickers; mass murderers of children; people that kill, butcher and cook the family dog; mothers that drown their babies; those that would cripple people with bombs of nails, buckshot and wood screws; and all the others poisoned with video game and Hollywood violence to the high security lock-up and throw away the key. Only problem is that history has proven over and over that even capital punishment is not enough to deter the truly evil. What then?

Here’s one reader’s suggestion:

“...get a concealed carry permit, get firearms training... be prepared to blow the effin heads off of thugs like these...”

There’s an idea. Instead of one bad headache (as it turns out the victim recovered) we end up with 3 or 4 dead bodies.

I’m normally a pretty happy, funny guy (when not wrestling the Black Dog). I’ll have lovingkindness cereal for breakfast, lunch and dinner. I’ll pray for these losers as if they were my own kids. Hell, I would send Jesus, Buddha, Ghandi, Timothy Leary, Jack Kornfeld and Mother Teresa door-to-door if it would get people to actually believe that kicking their brothers and sisters in the head is not cool.

Then there’s this voice - it’s kinda tough, harsh, a little raspy, filled with frustration, anger, cynicism and snarky sarcasm. It’s sayin’ “Hey, ‘The Kick’ is nothin’. Hell she’s lucky the dude didn’t whip his piece out of his waistband and plug her. This is America  and Americans are tough, mean, merciless; they know what they want and they know how to go about gettin’ it. Remember 911. Remember the Alamo!

If you want to get really angry, google “Caught on Tape”. Just make sure you’ve got your Digoxin nearby.  You’ll see:  It’s enough to make even the most peaceable of peaceniks wanna go out and kick some street punk ass.